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Thursday, August 6, 2015

France: In AFP captions, only Palestinians are peace activists

On Sunday, an Israeli peace group organized an event drawing together
Israelis and Palestinians who stood together against violence and for
peace. Why did Agence France-Presse call only the Palestinians "peace
activists" while referring to the Israeli participants as "Jewish
settlers"?

The Aug. 2 event, organized by the Israeli peace group Tag Meir, took
place along a major West Bank between Jerusalem and Hebron. In captions
accompanying a series of photographs, the AFP wire service drew a
remarkable distinction between Israeli and Palestinian participants.

Out of all seven of the captions, AFP consistently identified
Palestinian participants as "Palestinian peace activists." At the same
time, in all seven captions, the news agency called Israeli participants
"Jewish settlers," or, in one instance, "Jewish man." A sampling of the images and captions follows.

CAMERA has asked AFP: Are the Israelis demonstrating against violence
and in favor of peace not "peace activists?" Why the partial and
inconsistent terminology?